Eulalia Callis de Fages, a beautiful young woman from Spain, was married to the much older Pedro Fages, the soldier who became the first Governor of California. Leaving a plush life in Mexico City to make an arduous journey over sea and land by ship, mule and foot, she eventually reached Monterey to discover a primitive dusty settlement with buildings made of mud and straw. * * * She huddled into as small a bundle as she could as the lancha pulled rapidly away from the unfriendly harbor. Between the oarsmen bent to their long sweeps she could glimpse the warehouses, the ribs of a ship under...